EUROPAEA

PROJEKTUS EUROPAEAS IDIOMAS

AVE!

That's how we say "hi" in European.

Welcome to the European Language Project (ELP), an out-of-the box, creative and original approach to Europe's linguistic problems.

AVE!

Bonvenitus/a ad Projektu Europaeas Idiomas (PEI): Innovativus, kreativus et totaliae originalis attemptus ad solvire linguistikas problemas modernas Europas.

Important notice: The material hereunder reflects the current state of development of the language.

These rules can and - most likely - will change based on further developments. So check back regularly for fresh updates!

CONTENTS | Kontenus

#1 Short introduction breva introdukcio

#2 Phonology & alphabet fonologia et alfabeta

#3 Basic syntax & word order basikus syntaxis et ordo verbum

#4 Articles & determiners artikuli et determinatores

#5 Grammatical genders & number grammatikales generae et numeri

#6 Morphology (cases in the singular) morfologia (kazi in singulario)

#7 Examples exempli

#8 Phrase book librus frasem

#9 Glossary glossaria

- Important notice! importanta notifikacio!

#1 SHORT INTRODUCTION

Breva introdukcio

Most of Europe's countries are built on shared national identities based on common history, experience and - most of all - a shared national language. This makes the current notion of creating a shared European identity without having a shared European lingua franca as well, a bit tricky.

While writing my book SUPERPOWER, I realized that in a United Europe, we would also have a need for a common European Lingua Franca. So within the narrative, I created European as a creative solution to this problem.

I have dedicated this page to see if I can further work this idea into something a bit more substantial:

A functional European lingua franca, based primarily on Latin, Greek, the Baltic languages and the Slavic languages, but with bits of every other European tongue thrown in there somewhere.

Which (not very originally, I must admit) I call European, or in its own words: Europaea.

Most importantly, however, European is derived from an idea from a novel, and because of that, it is first and foremost supposed to be both useful and enjoyable, like a kind of linguistic sandbox where you can play around with the language without having to be afraid that you might accidentally smash something valuable. Language should be fun. Which is why I hope you enjoy the as-yet half-formed ideas I have jotted down on this page. The only thing that now rests me to say now, however, is:

AVE ET SALVE!

# 2 Phonology & Alphabet

fonología & alfabeta

European uses an alphabet of 26 unaccented letters. These are the same letters as the English alphabet.

European uses the Latin alphabet, as follows:

a | b | c | d | e | f | g | h | i | j | k | l | m | n | o | p | q | r | s | t | u | v | w | x | y | z

Vowels are always pronounced as separate sounds. The only exception to this is the letter i. Which is pronounced as an English Y (ipa: /j/) when preceding or following another vowel, in a system similar to Polish. If a an i needs to be pronounced as a separate letter, it is spelled ï, with a diaeresis, or trema. 

Example: Partïa [part'i:a] ~ party, but bestia [b'estja] ~ beast, animal

In addition to the 26 letters of the alphabet, there are also two ligatures. Ideally these should be written as one symbol, but can also be written as two separate letters representing 1 sound. These are: ae & oe.

AE represents the sound /aj/, which is similar to the pronunciation of English I or aye.

OE represents the sound /oe/ or /Y/, which is similar to the French oe ligature, or to the pronunciation of English worse or purse.

European uses an alphabet of 26 unaccented letters. These are the same letters as the English alphabet. The letter Q however, is never used in any native words.

Beyond the regular alphabet, Europaea uses a number of diphthongs and triphthongs, as follows:

ae ei eu oe ch ng nk sh

An important note on correct pronunciation of European:

Europaea is a constructed auxiliary language based on an idea from a novel, and intended to facilitate free communication and cooperation between Europeans. This means that there is no such thing as a “classical” or “hypercorrect” pronunciation – as long as you can make yourself understood, you’ll be okay. This also means that pronunciations can vary between speakers. Nevertheless: A uniform pronunciation aids understandability. So as long as you try to keep as close as possible to the recommended standard pronunciation above, you should be easily understood.

# 3 Basic syntax & word order

basikus syntaxis et ordo verbum

The basic word-order of European is Subject – Verb – Object.

Like the majority of modern European languages, this makes European an “SVO language”.

Example: Samus mangit orangias ~ Sam eats oranges.

Example: Viris lernat dixire Europaeu idiomu ~ The man is learning how to speak the European language.

(note: maybe I'll change this to "Viris lerna dixit Europaeu idiomu", with a baltoslavic-style -t infinitive. I haven't decided yet)

Predicative adjectives precede their nouns, and adverbs precede their adjective.

Example: Ego videm multae albu domu ~ I see a/the very white house.

# 4 Articles & determiners

artikuli et determinatores

Like Latin, or Finnish and Estonian, or the Slavic and Baltic languages, Europaea uses neither definite nor indefinite articles.

For example: Verbus “femina” designat duae “una femina” si “illa femina”

~ The word “femina” means both “one/a woman” as well as “that/the woman”

Note: The words unus/una (one) and illus/illa (that) and his/ha (this) can be used as ad-hoc definite/indefinite articles when required. When they are not absolutely necessary, however, these articles are simply left out.

# 5 Grammatical genders & numbers

grammatikales generae et numeri

Both Latin and the Slavic languages possess 3 broad genders: Feminine, masculine and neuter. Most European languages possess either 2, 3, 4 or no genders - depending on how you want to count them. It is a fact, however, that all European languages (expect English and the Finno-Ugric languages: Hungarian, Finnish and Estonian) know the concept of grammatical gender. Because this is such a quintessentially European characteristic, Europaea also knows grammatical gender.

To keep it easy, Europaea knows only 2 genders: Masculine & feminine. This is similar to the Romance and the Baltic languages.

Masculine nouns & adjectives can be recognised by the fact that their singular forms end in -s.

Feminine nouns & adjectives can be recognised by the fact that their singular forms end in a vowel: -a or -e/-i.

Warning: It is important to realise that grammatical gender and real, biological gender are not necessarily the same. In some cases, men can be referred to by feminine nouns (example: barrista.) and women can be referred to by masculine nouns (example: moderatoris ~ a/the moderator). To keep things straight, though, if a words has both a masculine and a feminine form, the proper form should be used to refer to the proper person.

Example: Is est presidentus, sed ella est presidente  ~ he is the (masculine) president, but she is the (feminine) president.

# 6 Morphology (cases in singular)

morfologia (kazi in singulario)

Like its parent language Latin, Europe declines its nouns and adjectives into cases that indicate grammatical functions and relationships within a sentence. European has 6 cases. These look different according to their underlying gender (masculine/feminine) and number (singular/plural). These cases are:

#1 Nominative - marks the subject of a sentence. Can be translated as "the/a".

Typical identifiers of this case are words ending in -(u)s for masculine words and -a/-e for feminine words.

#2 Accusative - marks the direct object of a sentence. Can be translated as "the/a".

Typical identifiers of this case are words ending in -u or -i for both masculine and feminine words.

#3 Dative - marks the indirect object of a sentence. Can be translated as "to/for/at".

Typical identifiers of this case are words ending in -(u)m for masculine words and -ae for feminine words.

#4 Genitive - indicates a possessive relationship between words, i.e. that one word belongs to another. Can be translated as "of". Typical identifiers of this case are words ending in -o or -es for masculine words and -as or -es for feminine words. Note that the genitive always follows the noun or phrase that belongs to it. Example: Karrus feminas - the woman's car.

#5 Locative - marks a location or place, or preposition. Can be translated as "in/at".

Typical identifiers of this case are words ending in -o for masculine words and -a for feminine words. 

Example: In Europa est magnus opus Nederlandiki historiki Geerti Makii. ~ In Europe is the magnus opus of the Dutch historian Geert Mak.

#6 Vocative - marks a direct address or approach to someone or something. Can be translated as "o" or "hey, you!". A classic example: Et tu, Brute? - "And you, Brutus?" where "Brutus" is vocative case because Caesar addresses him personally. Typical identifiers of this case are words ending in -e for masculine words and -a for feminine words.

Like its parent language Latin, Europaea declines its nouns and adjectives into cases that indicate grammatical functions and relationships within a sentence.

# 6 EXAMPLES

exempli (*)

Europaea idioma est basata su Latina, sed neest Latina! 

"The European language is based on Latin, but it isn't Latin!

Europaea est idioma kreerata funkcionerare ki lingua franka Europaeas Unitates.

European is a language created to function as the lingua franca of European Unity.

Omnes homines sunt nati liberi et equales in dignitate et direcïes. Sunt investi kum mensa et konsiencia et aktarant in spirito fraternitates*.

In English: "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and will/should act in a spirit of brotherhood"*.

Federale Europaea Industriale Sciencia Et Resaercia est fikcionalis Europaeus institutus resaercias ex ludo korrei Wipeout.

~ Federal European Industrial Science And Research (FEISAR) is a fictional European research institute from the racing game Wipeout.

Brussele est una ex duo kapitalem Europaeas Uniones, altus kapitalis est Stratburgus.

~ Brussels is one of the two capitals of the European Union, the other capital is Strasburg.

Unio Europas est demokrátika et ekonómika konfoederacio in extremo westo kontinenti Eurasias.

~ The European Union is a democratic and economic confederation in the extreme west of the Eurasian continent.

(* these examples are samples of the current state of development of the language. They can, may and probably will change based on further tinkering.)

Important Notice importanta notifikacio:

I only just started to add info & I update this page daily (well ... whenever I've got time & energy). So please check back later.

Erik Schrama's

European Language Project

Projektus Europaeas Idiomas Eriki Schramas

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